LaSalle Buys Resort Near D.C for $115.8M

In one of the largest single asset hotel sales this year, a struggling Washington D.C.-area resort hotel has traded for $115.8 million. LaSalle Hotel Properties bought the 296-room hotel from Lansdowne Resort Corp. with HREC Investment Advisors and The Greenwich Group International arranging the sale of the Leesburg property.

The resort, which bills itself as "the capitol region’s premier golf resort & spa," is located about 20 minutes outside of the Capital Beltway. In recent months, the resort has suffered from the tourism downturn and cancellation of several large conferences. The timing of the slump was acute: the Lansdowne was about to undergo major renovations before going onto the market earlier this year.

LaSalle already owns several properties in the D.C area, including boutique hotels Rouge, Topaz, Madera and Helix, but the Lansdowne will be LaSalle’s first Virginia hotel.

Lansdowne is considered one of the top conference resort properties in the nation, with a total of 296 rooms, an 18-hole Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed golf course and over 40,000 sq. ft. of meeting and conference space.

A second 18-hole golf course, with Greg Norman as architect, is expected to be completed as well. LaSalle will reportedly invest about $22 million into the Greg Norman course and construction of a new clubhouse. An additional $4 million will go into upgrading the resort’s guest rooms and public areas.

Geoff Davis, President of HREC Investment Advisors, praised the property for being "one of the few true trophy hotel assets" to come onto the market recently. "The response to the offering was extremely positive, with numerous deal structures emerging, from outright sale to joint venture proposals," he says.